I wanted the artwork to represent the album..and what better way than to create an image of me literally fuelling a hate-car with love?!

inspiration

I met with my friend Colin J Smith (who directed my "Lately" music video) and we knocked ideas around and shared inspiration. I was keen to create something surreal and use a neon-rainbow as the colour palette. He introduced me to an amazing artist known as DelaDeso who combines photos and drawings with a colourful grimy style. We were totally on the same page.

The original artwork

The next task was to get some photos. We had an amazing shoot in a friends studio in Knebworth on probably the hottest day of the year (32degC!) and hired a petrol pump for the day (definitely going in my list of weirdest things I've ever rented).

We trawled through hundreds of pictures from the shoot and of gas-stations around Los Angeles (where the album is set), and landed on the two that you see on the cover. Colin and I spent hours at his studio drawing up the hate car and blending the two images and then handed it across to Digital Light for the finishing touches.